Watch the Leap Motion control Windows 8 with ease

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Leap Motion is the long-time-coming, touch-free gesture controller designed for use with your operating system of choice. Up until today we knew that it would work with Windows, but in demos we’ve only seen it working with Google Earth, games, and other applications.

And, finally, it’s Leap controlling Windows 8. In a blog post the company explained how the Leap will work with Windows and how seamlessly it will operate as soon as you plug the USB peripheral in. The company claims that current Windows 8 and Windows 7 apps will all work with the touch-free USB controller — no update required.

In the video we see a user (well, a user’s hand) doing all sorts of actions that are useful on Windows 8, but not possible without a touchscreen. These include swiping, tap-and-drag, side-scrolling with an inertial flicking motion, pinch-to-zoom, writing with a stylus, multi-finger drawing, clicking with a poking motion, and what appears to be a half-swirl motion for browser-back.

This demo video shows the Leap controlling Windows 8, but the company has noted that it will also work with Windows 7 and OS X. The OS X video is reportedly on the way, while we can use this video to get a pretty good idea of how the touch-free controller will work with Win 7 and its Metro-free desktop.

The unstated theme of this video is that Windows 8 is very much built for touch, but most people don’t yet have a compatible computer or display. Peripherals like this one and mice with swipe-friendly areas will act as a stop-gap measure until more Windows desktops are shipping with a touchscreen or trackpad. And, even then, touch-free controls will have a unique appeal that other input methods will not, as motion gestures are useful under a number of circumstance and have a certain futuristic charm.

The Leap Motion was originally planned to ship in mid-May 2013, but the launch has been pushed back. At this point developer units have not yet been shipped, though the company does intend for early units to get out to testers this summer. [Update: Leap told me that while their unit is not available now, free kits were sent to over 12,000 people and that they will soon open access to their SDK for everyone. The current release date is set for July 22nd.